STEP export with appearences

[richard.grundy]

Hi would like to know 2 things

1) Is possible to export an assembly to STEP format and include appearances that have assigned to selected surfaces of the part files in the assembly.

2) If answer to above is yes, please advise how or where I can find the instructions to do so.

thank you

[Cadmanto · Accepted solution]

@richard.grundy 

As you can see from the link below, when exported to a step file the appearances are converted to RGB colors.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/What-... 

Windows 10 x64 -16GB Ram
Intel i7-6700 @ 3.41ghz
nVidia GTS 250 - 1 GB
Inventor Pro 2021

[Frederick_Law]

Save it as 214.

203 may not include color.

[richard.grundy]

So that suggests the export of materials as RGB per solid part, but if I understand correctly there is no way to get materials to export (even as RGB) when assigned at sub solid part level e.g. assigned to a specific surface?

All I really need is to end up with are poly selections for each material on the models once that have been tessalated, seems like I'm going to have to continue making poly sections manually in the DCC for now. (& yet we can put a person on the moon ;-)) 

[Cadmanto]

@richard.grundy 

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@richard.grundy wrote:

So that suggests the export of materials as RGB per solid part, but if I understand correctly there is no way to get materials to export (even as RGB) when assigned at sub solid part level e.g. assigned to a specific surface?

 That would be correct.  Basically because each CAD program has it's inner programming that is not easily translated.

Step files, IGES files and parasolids and such are universal translators for each CAD program.

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@richard.grundy wrote:

All I really need is to end up with are poly selections for each material on the models once that have been tessalated, seems like I'm going to have to continue making poly sections manually in the DCC for now. (& yet we can put a person on the moon ;-)) 

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Yet, when we placed a man on the moon, CAD wasn't around, so we have come a long way.  Maybe by the time your grandchildren are using this software this will happen. 😋 😉

Not that this will help, but Inventor files will call up directly into Solidworks.  So, if you setup your appearances within Solidworks like you have in Inventor, they can be applied rather easily.

Windows 10 x64 -16GB Ram
Intel i7-6700 @ 3.41ghz
nVidia GTS 250 - 1 GB
Inventor Pro 2021

[richard.grundy]

Thanks for the suggestion , but my issue is that I'm trying to find a way to get materials or at least the surface selections base on materials to pass thru to a STEP, OBJ, IGES  Solidworks or Ctia v5 conversions.

Material Per solid part is not granular enough for I need.

[schaferb24]

Still trying to figure that out with Inventor 2025